This should only be done when a root password is forgoten and only if your home folder is not encrypted. This is not for changing your user password. Please change your user password from Preferences.

Vincent Vermeulen wrote:WARNING!Do not do this if you have an encrypted home folder; you will not be able to access your encrypted home folder contents anymore. Change your password from Menu > Preferences > About Me, or Menu > Control Center > Users and Groups.

If you do have an encrypted home folder, please be sure to record your passphrase that you need to access your files should you forget your login password. Without this passphrase, you will not be able to recover your encrypted home folder contents in any way. Log in, open a terminal, run the following command and store the output in a safe place:

Hopefully you will never need it, but I suggest you do this immediately if you haven't done so already after installing Linux Mint with an encrypted home folder.

In order to reset your password, you have to boot into single-user mode. You can do this by selecting the recovery mode option which is usually the second choice. (If the grub menu is not visible hold the shift key down at bootup)

WARNING!Do not do this if you have an encrypted home folder; you will not be able to access your encrypted home folder contents anymore. Change your password from Menu > Preferences > About Me, or Menu > Control Center > Users and Groups.

If you do have an encrypted home folder, please be sure to record your passphrase that you need to access your files should you forget your login password. Without this passphrase, you will not be able to recover your encrypted home folder contents in any way. Log in, open a terminal, run the following command and store the output in a safe place:

Vincent Vermeulen wrote:WARNING!Do not do this if you have an encrypted home folder; you will not be able to access your encrypted home folder contents anymore. Change your password from Menu > Preferences > About Me, or Menu > Control Center > Users and Groups.

If you do have an encrypted home folder, please be sure to record your passphrase that you need to access your files should you forget your login password. Without this passphrase, you will not be able to recover your encrypted home folder contents in any way. Log in, open a terminal, run the following command and store the output in a safe place:

Hey Thanks for the info, but when I tried this and selected Drop to root shell prompt, a prompt showed up but I couldn't type in it. It said enter root password or enter Control-D to continue but either way no characters would show up after prompt no matter what keys I pressed, it just remains blank like it can't register the keyboard anymore..any ideas or alternate route?

Vincent Vermeulen wrote:Just type your password; on the terminal, as a security measure, you are never shown feedback from typing your password. So the cursor doesn't move and neither do any mask characters like **** appear.